Media Literacy

Critical media literacy is a necessary part of young people's education and can foster the space for a more thoroughly informed and involved citizenry. In order to make critical media literacy sustainable in K-12 classrooms, learning and application of it must begin with teachers, preferably during their formal schooling. Educating Media Literacy is a manifesto for the inclusion of media literacy in teacher education and, by extension, in K-12 classrooms. Through a discussion of critical media literacy's aims and the role of teacher education in the United States, this book argues for the inclusion of critical media literacy in teacher education. Educating Media Literacy addresses two separate topics - teacher education and media literacy - and illustrates how they are intertwined: The United States struggles simultaneously with how best to train and retain prospective teachers and how to foster a better understanding of mainstream media. These two struggles can join forces and move towards a solution through the following: The inclusion of critical media literacy in teacher education programs.

Who creates the cultural landscape we experience? When we watch the evening news, are we receiving unrevised information straight from the day's headlines or is it positioned in such a way as to 'manufacture consent,' as Chomsky put it? These are just two of the fascinating questions posed by the authors of this collection as they develop a new form of media literacy that encourages students to become critical readers of the media that attempts to shape their experience. This is an intriguing and wide-ranging critique that makes the perfect text for a variety of courses including curriculum studies, critical pedagogy, media studies, cultural studies and political science.

Foreword by Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, Executive Director, National Association for Media Literacy Education Preface by Denise E. Agosto Though media literacy and information literacy are intertwined, there are important differences; and there has never been a more urgent need for an incisive examination of the crucial role librarians and other educators can play in teaching the skills necessary to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media. Media literate youth and adults are better able to understand the complex messages emanating from television, movies, radio, the internet, news outlets, magazines, books, billboards, video games, music, and all other forms of media.  In this book, international expert De Abreu melds advice from a diverse array of practitioners and subject experts with her own research findings to examine how consuming media and technology impacts the learning of K-12 students, tackling such paramount issues as fake news/alternative facts; critical thinking digital literacy and digital citizenship; social inclusion and equity; global interconnectivity; and social justice and advocacy.

Good researchers have a host of tools at their disposal that make navigating today's complex information ecosystem much more manageable. Gaining the knowledge, abilities, and self-reflection necessary to be a good researcher helps not only in academic settings, but is invaluable in any career, and throughout one's life. The Information Literacy User's Guide will start you on this route to success.

The Information Literacy User's Guide is based on two current models in information literacy: The 2011 version of The Seven Pillars Model, developed by the Society of College, National and University Libraries in the United Kingdom and the conception of information literacy as a metaliteracy, a model developed by one of this book's authors in conjunction with Thomas Mackey, Dean of the Center for Distance Learning at SUNY Empire State College. These core foundations ensure that the material will be relevant to today's students.

The Information Literacy User's Guide introduces students to critical concepts of information literacy as defined for the information-infused and technology-rich environment in which they find themselves. This book helps students examine their roles as information creators and sharers and enables them to more effectively deploy related skills. This textbook includes relatable case studies and scenarios, many hands-on exercises, and interactive quizzes.

This 30 page guide is available as a free download. It contains strategies for library staff. "This guide includes resources and ideas to plan programs and activities to teach media literacy skills to adults and to integrate these skills into programming already in place at libraries."

Media Studies 101 is the open educational resource for media studies studies in New Zealand, Australia, and Pacifica. We have constructed this text so it can be read in a number of ways. You may wish to follow the structured order of 'chapters' like you would in a traditional printed textbook. Each section builds on and refers back to previous sections to build up your knowledge and skills. Alternatively, you may want to go straight to the section you are interested in -- links will help guide you back to definitions and key ideas if you need to refresh your knowledge or understand a new concept.This text is open under a Creative Commons NZ BY license.

The author provides a transdisciplinary method that allows for both practical and theoretical analyses of media investigations. Informed by postphenomenology, media ecology, philosophical posthumanism, and complexity theory, the author proposes both a framework and a pragmatic instrument for understanding the multiplicity of relations that all contribute to how we affect—and are affected by—our relations with media technology.

The web gives us many such strategies and tactics and tools, which, properly used, can get students closer to the truth of a statement or image within seconds. For some reason we have decided not to teach students these specific techniques. As many people have noted, the web is both the largest propaganda machine ever created and the most amazing fact-checking tool ever invented. But if we haven't taught our students those capabilities is it any surprise that propaganda is winning?

This is an unabashedly practical guide for the student fact-checker. It supplements generic information literacy with the specific web-based techniques that can get you closer to the truth on the web more quickly.